deformed bone

Calvin thought he would see Virgil when he woke up, as always.

But the reality is that there is no one around him.

Calvin sat up slowly, and he found himself back on the bed. The quilt made of Egyptian cotton covered his body, which was as heavy and cold as if soaked in moisture.The vacation home was empty, the temperature was freezing, and the central air-conditioning was humming in the ducts around the roof.

The light that fell into the room from the window was very dim, and Calvin got up from the bed, just like the countless times he had passed out before, his headache was bouncing regularly in the flesh under the temple, which made Calvin a little dizzy.

He glanced at the time, and the round metal wall clock pointer on the wall pointed to six minutes past six. The slender black pointer was like a witch's finger, stuck in the small square to the left of the number 6.The funny thing is that Calvin stared at it for a long time before he realized that the wall clock had stopped.

"call……"

Calvin stroked his forehead and temples vigorously with his thumb. He was so dizzy that he couldn't even tell whether it was morning or afternoon—looking out the window, the beach that should have been as gorgeous and bright as a postcard was covered in layers In the gray mist, the yellow light struggled to pass through the fog and fell on the surface of the earth, but the position of the sun was difficult to judge.

Probably because of the bad weather, the sea water showed a turbid blue-gray color, and the beach looked dirty, with no one in sight.

Calvin only glanced at the lifeless landscape before looking away.

He suspected he was running a fever because he felt really cold.

"Vigily? Are you there?"

He pulled himself a blanket, staggered open the door and called.

He still didn't get any response, Virgili wasn't here.

"Damn."

Calvin muttered, full of irritability.

He had to admit that when he found Virgili not by his side, he felt a great panic.

Of course, Calvin could also attribute his vulnerability to the dream before he woke up. Unlike the previous nightmare that lasted almost throughout his sleep, Calvin rarely remembered the content of that dream.

Doctor Holden.

door.

his wings.

……

Calvin thought of those things on his back, the sharp pain and strange touch he felt before he passed out.

Without any hesitation, Calvin tore off his pajamas, and the old wound on the shoulder blade was once again well covered with dressings and gauze. Fogg obviously gave Calvin local skin anesthesia. When Calvin When tearing off the gauze in a strange posture in front of the mirror, he didn't feel anything, but some red and swollen wounds felt numb to the touch, like the skin on someone else's body.

Calvin saw a very small speck of white embedded in the swollen wound.It was a newborn wing root, and Calvin himself was surprised that he was not too excited about it.

Even if this pair of wings is proof that he was once in hell.

Maybe I knew it long before it came out...

Calvin heard a voice in his heart speak quietly.

Yes, although he had cut off the pair of wings a long time ago, he has always been told by something that should be called intuition: yes, the pair of wings will still come back.

After examining the wound, Calvin moved into the kitchen. He was too cold and needed a big pot of boiling coffee or something.

On the sink in the kitchen, Calvin saw a note from Virgil, which said that he went to buy some necessary supplies and would be back soon.At the end of the note, Vigili playfully ticked off a heart symbol.

From this point of view, this rich man still maintains an almost innocent childlike heart.

Calvin didn't seem to care that the message was put aside, but even he didn't know it. After seeing the message, he relaxed a lot.

"Kick...kick..."

While making hot coffee for himself, the coffee pot in Calvin's hand made a clear sound on the edge of the cup.

That nightmare was disturbing.

Until now, when thinking of the scene in the nightmare, Calvin could clearly feel the hairs on the back of his neck standing up uncontrollably.

Of course, what bothers him more is his self-knowledge, such as his dependence on Virgil.

The man with mint-colored eyes and soft curly hair obviously appeared for such a short time, but he naturally blended into Calvin's life, filling the foul-smelling blackness of Calvin's life bit by bit. gap.And when he suddenly didn't stay by his side as Calvin expected, Calvin found himself feeling panicked.

This is so bad.

There may be someone in this world who can live innocently like a weak child, but that person is absolutely impossible to be Calvin.

He will never forget the pain when the sparks of blood and explosives fell on his hands.

Calvin lowered his eyes and poured the scalding coffee into his mouth in one gulp.

The heat flowed down the throat and fell directly into the stomach, which somewhat made Calvin feel better.His back hurts, too.

And at this moment, a subtle feeling suddenly appeared, as if the neck was lightly swept by a goose feather——

"Who?"

Calvin instantly grabbed the stainless steel knife placed on the counter, and turned around vigilantly.

However, in the direction where he felt his sight coming, there was only the still empty porch.

"Om-"

The buzzing of the air conditioner increased a little at this moment.

Calvin did not relax his vigilance, holding the knife firmly in his hand, and slowly left the kitchen.After a very careful search, Calvin still found nothing.

"Crack."

Calvin turned on all the lights in the room and turned the air conditioner to the highest setting.

For some reason, this empty house made him feel that something was wrong.

It's so quiet here.

Calvin thought.

He heard the sound of the air conditioner, and his own footsteps, but nothing else.

This kind of quiet made him always unconsciously tense up.

Finally, he came to the living room and turned on the TV. He was so expressionless that he shrank himself into the soft sofa without putting down the chef's knife in his hand.

The loud sound of the television set broke the deathly silence of the house.

This is a children's TV program that can even be said to be noisy. The so-called top ten most appalling crime scenes in America.

Originally, Calvin just wanted to get himself out of the suspicious mood, but the program that appeared on TV made him start to frown unconsciously.

It's too bloody...

Calvin thought.

Even though all the characters and props are clumsy toys, the scenes performed by the children are full of unpleasant gloom and violence.

Using hanging needles and stimulants to keep victims awake, allowing them to watch themselves being disemboweled in extreme fear; putting live rats and cockroaches into fragile paper bags and sewing them into the abdominal cavity of living people; Force a family to use crude scissors and pliers to pull out each other's teeth and nails...

Artificial laughter and applause echoed regularly amid the exaggerated screams and struggles, but Calvin found himself in a cold sweat.

He felt a little nauseous, and his heart was beating very fast...

"Hee hee hee……"

Subtle, soft laughter was caught in the sound of the TV, and it sounded close at hand.

Calvin suddenly grasped the handle of the knife, he jumped up, and almost grabbed the sofa, but there was still no sign of anyone as far as he could see.

"Ha ha ha ha……"

Behind him, the caustic, mechanical laughter on the TV seemed to grow more intense and strident.

Calvin's face was so pale that he turned his head, and he was staring at the TV.

Why didn't you notice it at the very beginning?

Calvin asked himself in his heart.

That TV was nothing like the ultra-thin flat-screen TVs popular in modern society.

The bulky and chubby body, the slightly raised screen surface, and the tiny snowflakes that keep rolling over the screen surface.

A faded sticker was pasted on the side of the TV, with blackened offset printing next to it.

Calvin remembers the joy of putting the stickers on the TV.

It was a scrap that the man brought back from the second-hand market—but to the young Calvin, that TV was a treasure second only to the game console.

Daniel Wright, his stepfather, broker, and Adventist salesman, would allow Calvin to sit in front of the TV for half an hour after Calvin was "good," and he would even take Calvin to public Check out some videotapes from the library.

Whenever it was time to get the "reward", Calvin would be like a stray dog ​​who had been hungry for a long time, eagerly begging Daniel to allow him to watch TV for a while, and then Daniel would smile gently...

Calvin was trembling all over, unable to move, staring at the TV in his childhood memory.

This is an illusion.

He murmured to himself.

His hand held the knife from the handle to the blade, and hot blood flowed out from between his fingers, dripping to the ground.

And his shoulder blades began to ache as if they were stuck with a branding iron.

"whee……"

Soft and innocent children's laughter rolled down.

Calvin moved his head with difficulty, but he could only vaguely capture an afterimage.

It looks like a child playing hide-and-seek in the porch and in the crevices of the cabinet.

"It's not over yet, you should kill them, kill them happily."

The program on the TV was still going on, and the child's sharp dubbing was like a silver knife, cutting Calvin's nerves back and forth.

Calvin looked at the TV again with a bloody face.

The show has come to an end, but the children in doll costumes still stand on the stage and never leave.

"Gouging out their eyes with a silver spoon, cutting their skin with scissors, removing excess fat with a knife, and then bringing cute puppies to eat their soft internal organs..."

Accompanied by cheerful singing, the children took off their doll headgear one by one.

One after another, swollen faces were reflected in Calvin's pupils.